Childrens Book Review of Strega Nona's Magic Lessons by Tomie dePaola, Number Three in the Series

A baker’s daughter dislikes ever earlier and later hours. A new hire does not stop thinking about food. The stage is set for “Strega Nona’s Magic Lessons.”

Bakers are known by the quality of the creations with which they fill their shops and the speed with which they release and replace their inventions. They traditionally cannot get the job done without being first to: • Fall asleep while daylight still clarifies the evening hours; • Get up while blackness still depresses the early night.

The responsibilities do not leave much free time even though they may entail much customer appreciation. Expanding clienteles and revenues generally encourage bakers to consider new hires to share increasingly demanding schedules. That is not what happens in “Strega Nona’s Magic Lessons.”

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In "Strega Nona's Magic Lessons," bakeries and magic may or may not be interchangeable:

Calabria's celebrated cuisine includes such tantalizing baked goods as pitta 'mpigliata ("tangled pitta"), an orange-based sweet also redolent of cloves.

Every morning Bambolona brings bread to Strega Nona. She does her job as baker’s assistant well. So her customer base expands … as do her work hours. Bambolona therefore expects the baker to help out or hire assistants. But her father follows another tack in coping with the increased business. He gives his daughter earlier start- and later end-times. He has no intention of:

Diminishing time spent with his friends;

Diverting resources to non-family new hires.

Impressed with the big young girl’s dedication, Strega Nona hires Bambolona for a magic spells-learning apprenticeship. Bambolona’s father then hires Big Anthony as baker’s assistant. But Big Anthony is caught sleeping while rising dough invades the room. He loses his job.

Hapless Big Anthony falls asleep on his job as a baker's assistant and awakens to the frightening encroachment of endlessly rising dough.

Big Anthony can be fixated when not working and inattentive on the job. He decides that he will not take Strega Nona’s decision to train nobody but Bambolona. He disguises himself as Big Antonia. But he does not distinguish himself. Bambolona alone gets to access Strega Nona’s book of hard spells. Big Anthony gets inside the house after hours and reads the book without Strega Nona’s consent or knowledge. At the next day’s lesson, he intends to impress Bambolona and Strega Nona with his magical prowess. His magic act nevertheless is ineffective on the kitchen kettle. It instead leaves Strega Nona a frog … until Big Antonia confesses to being Big Anthony and Calabria’s Grandma Witch reappears.

In "Strega Nona's Magic Lessons," Big Anthony snoops into Strega Nona's Book of Spells but discovers that there is more to spell casting than just reading and repeating.